Kibbe on Liberty

Matt Kibbe is joined by Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of Openthebooks.com, to discuss the complex web of payola that exists between major pharmaceutical companies and scientists at the NIH. Many of these government bureaucrats, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, receive royalty payments for products they work on. Now that they are in a position to regulate, and even mandate, the use of certain treatments, this creates a major conflict of interest. We can’t trust those in the government to pick winners and losers in the marketplace when doing so allows them to enrich themselves at the expense of the American taxpayer and even at the cost of public health.

Matt Kibbe sits down with Clint Russell, host of “Liberty Lockdown,” to talk about how the lockdown policies of the last two years have created the infrastructure to implement a nightmarish regime of social control to rival China’s social credit system. Under the guise of promoting environmental protection, social justice, and good governance, those who control the nation’s financial systems will be able to aggressively police individual behavior. Anyone who doesn’t behave “correctly” will find their access to society cut off, including the loss of their bank accounts. And the scariest thing is that it’s not just the government implementing these policies, but nominally private businesses acting on the government’s behalf.

Matt Kibbe sits down with Magno Karl, executive director of Livres, to discuss the recent political changes in Brazil, the country's liberty movement, and the prospects for a freer, more open Brazil in the near future. Karl explains the difference between Brazil's multi-party system and America's two-party one, warns against the dangers of electing a populist strongman, and urges libertarians from all countries to stop bickering with each other in order to more effectively unite in creating a better world free of power-hungry dictators.

Matt Kibbe is joined by Rachel Ferguson and Marcus Witcher, authors of “Black Liberation Through the Marketplace,” to discuss the ways in which free markets and free people have done more for racial justice and equality than any top-down government program. While acknowledging that minorities still face real problems with structural racism in the United States, Ferguson and Witcher point out that in most cases these structures are imposed by the government rather than eliminated by them, and the largest reductions in racist policies have come during periods of deregulation. While the social justice crowds tend to demand more and more intervention by the state, they ignore the fact that slavery, segregation, eugenics, and all of the other racially motivated programs were products of a large central government, not of ordinary people.Black Liberation Through the Marketplace: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637583443

Matt Kibbe sits down with Leopold Ajami, founder of Novel Philosophy Academy, to talk about the philosophy of Ayn Rand and how it can be applied to improve people’s lives in a tangible way. Rand gets a bad rap for her defense of terms like “selfishness,” but in essence her philosophy is all about self-respect and the pursuit of happiness. In an era when young people are surrounded by prosperity and yet feel miserable and oppressed, Rand’s ideas can perhaps provide an antidote to the pessimism and fatalism that are dominating the culture experienced by America’s youth.

Matt Kibbe is joined by Jesse Ramos, community engagement director for AFP-Montana, to talk about the ways in which individuals can make a difference in local politics. So often, our conversations revolve around national institutions like the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court, but it’s really at the local level where we can best hope to effect real change. Issues like education, property taxes, and the lockdown policies implemented by local health departments can have a dramatic impact on people’s lives, but we can improve those outcomes simply by showing up to city council meetings and getting involved.

Matt Kibbe is joined by Republican congressional candidate Lily Tang Williams to talk about her experiences growing up under Chinese communism and the ways in which the United States is starting to be influenced by the same kinds of authoritarian policies. Mao Zedong’s socialist experiment resulted in 45 million deaths, but young people today have barely even heard of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The lockdown policy during the coronavirus pandemic originated in China, and now the American government is openly pondering a system of vaccine passports that looks a lot like the Chinese social credit system. This is a totalitarian policy that gives the government total control over the degree to which citizens are allowed to participate in their own society.

Matt Kibbe sits down with conservatarian journalist and commentator Olivia Rondeau to talk about the Biden administration’s obsession with fighting alleged disinformation. While lies and propaganda have always been part of public discourse, the sudden focus on policing speech might have more to do with plummeting poll numbers, skyrocketing inflation, the devastation of COVID lockdown policies, shortages, unemployment, and all the other consequences of a backward policy agenda that has left voters high and dry. As a young black conservative woman, Rondeau is in a position to see through all the nonsense of identity politics and game playing leading up to the midterm elections.

Matt Kibbe is joined by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to discuss the causes and solutions to the current shortage of baby formula in the United States. It’s mainly the result of an absurd regulatory regime that hinders competition and prevents producers and distributors from meeting the needs of consumers. But rather than dismantling or scaling back those regulations, the administration is engaging in cheap political stunts — including the use of military planes to air drop baby formula from Europe into swing states. The whole incident is a perfect illustration of the inability of a central government to effectively distribute goods in the same way that a free market is capable of doing. The senator also discusses his new book, “Saving Nine,” about the Democratic effort to pack the Supreme Court.

Matt Kibbe is joined by Tony Woodlief, author of "I, Citizen," to talk about how Americans can address political polarization and the increasingly fragmented communities that leave us at each other’s throats. If you only view the country through the lens of social media, you could be forgiven for thinking that the country is on the brink of a civil war. The reality is that we are less divided than we seem. The tendency to break everything down into Left and Right doesn’t actually reflect people’s real attitudes. In reality, most people fall somewhere in the middle, or else have a complex blend of views from both sides of the aisle. The kind of Manichean thinking that reduces everything to red versus blue is what’s dividing us more than our actual views.I, Citizen: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1641772107/